Refers to a general condition of process or system, rather than a condition of one of the component pieces. For example, when a plant wilts in response to drought, the entire organism is responding to the effect of loss. Communities of plants and...

n. A difference between two accents (sense 1) of a language in which one accent possesses one or more phonemes absent from the other. For example, the RP phoneme is absent from American accents, and words which have in RP variously have or /A/ in...

Understanding a system as a comprehensive set of functional relations. This is an approach between INDIVIDUALISM and...

Systemics is the emerging branch of science that studies holistic systems. It tries to develop logical, mathematical, engineering and philosophical paradigms and frameworks in which physical, technological, biological, social, cognitive and metaphysical...

A Weekly Checkup on Health Care Costs and Coverage It's all pretty familiar: Higher co-pays. Coinsurance for hospital stays. More generic drugs. Such are the cost containment methods that 9 million federal employees and retirees are likely to see in re- enrollment packages...

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Serious problems in state death penalty systems compromise fairness and accuracy in capital punishment cases and justify a nationwide freeze on executions, the American Bar Association says.Problems cited in a report released Sunday by the lawyers' organization include:_Spotty collection and preservation of DNA evidence, which...